Vehicular Man-Squatter

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Vehicular Mansquatter re brings the case against his brother, Jan.

Jan has been living in his car for the last few months.

Rhea thinks Jan needs to find an apartment of his own, but Jan is happy with his current situation.

Who's right?

Who's wrong?

Only one man can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

I know his girlfriend, Phyllis, but I won't tell her.

It's not for me to judge or discriminate, just because she does, and he won't.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, swear them in.

Please rise and raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, or nothing but the truth?

So help you, God, or whatever?

Yes.

Yes.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he prefers hashtag van life?

Yeah, yeah.

Very well, Judge Hodgman.

You may be seated.

Rhea and Jan, for an immediate summary judgment in one of yours' favors, can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered the courtroom.

Jan, why don't you go first?

What's your guess?

Phyllis, Phyllis.

I have no idea, and I'm not even going to venture a guess.

Good job saying Phyllis, though.

That's true.

You do have to guess.

I'm going to enter Phyllis into the guest book, specifically the Cloris Leachman spin-off of Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 70s.

So we'll enter that.

And now, Re,

what is your guess?

Well, considering past podcasts, I'll just go with a Martin Goat song.

Considering podcasts, a Martin Good song.

No, a Mountain Goat Goats song, Judge Hodgman.

Listen carefully.

I apologize.

But I would like the Mountain Goats to release an album called The Martin Goods.

And song one, side one, a Martin Goods song.

If you're listening, John Darnell, I'm commissioning a song from you.

Hey, they have a new record album out.

Judge Hodgman, I'm a little bit worried that if you challenge John Darneill to write a song called The Martin Goods Song, he will.

Because I don't know if you're aware of this, but he and our mutual friend Ryan Johnson got into a back and forth on Twitter a couple months ago after John wrote on Twitter that he wanted the new Star Wars movie to be named The Ultimate Jedi who wastes all the other Jedi and eats their bones.

And then Ryan said that he should write a song of that, and then he did.

Yeah, no, no, I know exactly what I'm doing.

All guesses are wrong, by the way.

It's not Phyllis, although that was a great guess.

A much overlooked sitcom, nor was it a mountain goats song.

It was the complete poem called Vincent Said,

written by the singer-songwriter known as Jewel from her book of poetry that came out in 1998, before you were even born, probably, called A Knight Without Armor.

And Jewel, as you may know, is famous for being from Alaska, getting discovered when she was 21 years old in a cafe in California, when she was living in her what, you guys?

A car.

A car?

Wrong van, but good, close enough.

I mean,

same difference.

You know what?

Accounts vary, but yes.

One of the fables of Jewel was that she was an Alaskan fairy princess who was living in a van and then became a singer-songwriter and a poet.

So here we are.

Re, you bring this case against your brother Jan, right?

Yes.

And you both live in Atlanta.

Is that correct?

Yeah, I live in Atlanta proper.

He lives in Metro Atlanta.

Yeah, more closer to Marietta.

Well, I was going to say Marietta because it's a very specific accent that you both have.

It's a very obvious Marietta accent.

That Atlanta Marietta accent.

Where are you both from originally?

Where are you from originally, I should say?

Re?

South Africa.

yeah we're both born and raised south african born and

born yeah born and bred and where where in south africa were you born and and raised all over really but we were both in born in pretoria yeah and then we learned our english in durban so our father works around a lot so um we lived in in all parts of south africa and now you uh live here in the united states

And you both live in Atlanta.

How did you guys come to live in Atlanta?

Well, my father,

he works

with business intelligence for Coca-Cola.

And so he's a contractor, and so he gets contracts all over the place.

They're actually currently in Japan, in Tokyo, working on the vending machines for Coca-Cola.

When you say business intelligence, are you saying that he's a Coke spy?

Yeah, I mean, I can't really tell you anything.

And when you say that he has contracts all over the world, you mean that he has to murder various soft drink magnates all over the world, right?

Maleb source.

Oh,

did he take out the Moxie guy?

The Moxie guy?

Yeah.

Jesse, I don't know if I've ever mentioned to you a regional New England soft drink called Moxie.

It's from New England.

Originally manufactured in Massachusetts, but now the state soft drink of Maine.

I'm not familiar with any of those things that you just listed.

In any case, none of this is interesting.

Even,

well, I have to say, your dad being a mercenary/slash licensed-to-kill

Coke spy is awesome.

But Jan, you're living not merely in Atlanta, you're living in your car.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

And Jan, how old are you?

I'm 21.

And why are you living in your car?

Um, that is a very good question that I still kind of don't have the answer to.

Well, how long have you been living in your car?

Um

until now, what's the it's the f fourth month, so it's been three months.

Yep.

You're in your fourth month now.

I would think that spending that much of time alone in your car would give you ample opportunity to consider why am I doing this.

Yeah, but you know,

I tend to find other things to occupy my time besides contemplating my living situation.

I find that to be impossible.

If I were sleeping in a parked car, I would only be thinking about where has my life gone wrong.

Well, you're assuming that he's sleeping in a parked car.

That's true.

I might have a very, very dignified chauffeur driving me all over Atlanta, showing me the sights.

As much as I love that image, what kind of car do you have?

I have a 2010 Prius.

Yeah.

A little cherry red.

Yeah.

It's my baby.

That's your baby?

It sounds to me like you're its baby.

Because you're gestating inside of it.

Gestating in the womb.

Yes.

Re,

do you live in a car?

I do not.

I live in a car.

Where do you live?

An apartment in Little Five Points.

Atlanta.

Oh, yeah, I know Little Five Points.

Yeah.

That's a cool neighborhood.

They used to have a record store there.

I bet it's not there anymore.

No, it is.

Criminal records, it's still there.

All right.

Well done, criminal records.

Hanging in there.

I appreciate that.

So, Rhea, you are

older than Jan?

Yeah.

Well, I'll be 23 in July.

Since Jan doesn't seem to know, do you have any idea why he's living in his car?

Tell me what's going on in his life.

He's.

The way I explain it is,

so my brother's brother's busy getting a mathematics degree and

he's already got like

a crazy professor vibe where he only thinks about math all the time and that's the only thing he's doing.

So he's just like a crazy professor and he doesn't like

the trappings of like a civilized life.

So, you know, he's just like, I don't need a house.

I'm just going to live in my car.

And he's just, he's just...

He gets these ideas in his head and then he just gets really stubborn and he doesn't listen to anybody.

We don't have any experience with that at Judge John Hodgman.

Now that you put it in the context of he's something of a crazy professor, I understand better.

Like when I was going to Yale University, an accredited four-year college in southern Connecticut, famous Shakespeare scholar Harold Bloom would sleep in a chrysalis and wake up every morning a beautiful butterfly.

The keeper of the Western canon.

That's exactly so.

A lot of people don't know that Harold Bloom is a wear butterfly.

Half man, half butterfly.

So, Jan, you're getting a degree in mathematics.

That's correct.

Is this a financial issue for you, Jan?

Do you have to sleep in a car?

No, it's not.

Being a contract mercenary for the Coca-Cola Foundation or corporation,

you know, there's there's not really much trouble there.

My father.

Your father could support a a nicer lifestyle for you with his Moxie blood money.

No, I mean, he is supporting me and my brother.

So this is pure choice.

This is pure

affected eccentricity.

Of course, yeah.

There's no philosophy behind it.

There's no ideology behind it.

There's no underlying theory of how

we need to make cities denser by living in smaller spaces and thus increasing efficiency.

It's just like, maybe I'm going to drive my older brother crazy by sleeping in my car.

Maybe I'll get on a podcast if I do this.

Is that what you're thinking?

Hey, that's what I was just thinking.

Maybe this was all a ruse, just so I could get on the John Hodgman show.

Well, let's make sure that it's not a ruse.

You're not faking.

You're not lying.

You sent in evidence was submitted to this court of you in your Prius.

Yeah.

It was submitted by Jan.

And you can find all of this evidence, of course, on the Judge John Hodgman page at maximumfund.org.

And here we are.

So let's talk a little bit about what I'm seeing here.

It is cherry red, as you pointed out.

It is a hatchback.

What I'm observing is that you have created a kind of sleeping nest

in the cargo area with the back seat folded front.

Yes, that's correct.

I see your nest here is made up of a large red pillow, a large multi-colored quilt of some kind, and then like a blue comforter, and all of

a homemade quilt.

A home, oh, well, all the comforts of non-home.

And you have a

also

your blue comforter is concealing a red plastic bin, which

yes, that's correct.

That's where I keep all of my clothing.

Okay.

But what I neglected to forward was I can actually fold all of that stuff into the trunk and still have a five-seater car if I need it to be.

I see you lying in the car.

Obviously, you do not normally sleep with the hatch open.

This is just for demonstration purposes.

Of course, yeah.

How tall are you?

5'11.

Ah, that's the favorite answer of everyone who is 5'10.

Of course.

I tried that for years, Jan.

Stop lying to yourself and others.

Okay, but you're an average height person,

and you're lying there with a big smile on your face, and your thumbs are up, but because you're lying down, all I see are thumbs down, thumbs down, Jan.

Yeah.

Where are you parked in this photo?

I was parked in a friend's neighborhood yesterday, like

an apartment complex.

Do you park?

Is that where you sleep?

No, generally I find like an barn abandoned or not abandoned but a car a place where they fix cars and they have a bunch of cars that are being worked on.

Then I generally park in between like two cars that haven't moved in weeks and then I just stay there.

But last night was a special case.

Right, because you needed to take these pictures.

You didn't think it would help your case to have your car photographed in an after-hours sketchy muffler repair situation next to a couple of abandoned cars.

Right.

It's terrifying.

Terrifying lifestyle, Jan.

One quick question.

Do you park?

Do you sleep in different places every night?

No.

Generally on

Monday, Wednesday, Friday nights, I stay in the same place, and then Tuesday, Thursday, I stay somewhere else.

But beyond that, it's pretty stationary.

Because I go to two different campuses for my college.

One is up north on 75 and the other one is closer to Atlanta.

So then wherever I need to be the next day, I sleep there the night before.

Do you cover your windows or do you sleep such that someone could peer into your window and see you sleeping?

I sleep uncovered,

like with

nothing on the windows.

But that's actually something I've been thinking about.

I need to find some Velcro or find a seamstress that can make me some coverings.

That's yeah, you have to find a seamstress to get some really

nice custom

hatchback coverings so no one will see you sleeping

at 2 a.m.

in the creepy muffler lot.

The biggest problem is it's so well lit that I have a hard time sleeping.

Do you want to think the three words the biggest problem?

Yeah, baby.

Because I got got one for you.

I have a question.

I don't know the answer.

Do you have permission from Creepy Muffler Shop A or B to be sleeping in their lot overnight?

I do not, but it seems that they haven't caught on because I usually leave before

7 a.m.

I'm out of there.

Because

the problem is

that when they catch on, you'll know.

Yeah,

most likely.

So you don't have permission, permission, right?

No.

I also had trouble with the police on campus because I was parking on campus at first.

And then they were like, yeah, maybe you shouldn't be parking.

Maybe you should find a place to live or something.

And every night they would wake me up with a flashlight to see what was up.

Well, that answered my next question, which is why don't you park at the campuses?

Because the campuses have said to you, of your two institutions of higher learning, please don't sleep in your car in our parking lot.

Yeah, pretty much.

Let's take a quick break.

We'll be back in just a second.

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Re,

your brother has made a life choice

and he seems pretty happy with it.

Why would you have me compel him?

to move into an apartment or some other kind of standard living arrangement.

Well, I think it's there's like two parts to this.

The first one is that it's um starting to it's getting a lot hotter in Atlanta now now that it's starting to be summer.

So um you know so he's going to be in China so he won't be back until June.

And at that point it's going to be blazingly hot outside even at night and he can't, you know, he can't sleep with the windows down and he can't run his car the entire night.

So that's why he needs to get an apartment so he, you know, doesn't get heat stroke or anything.

And and then the second part is um he spends most weekends at my apartment, which is like

cool and all but um I do have the apartment that I'm living is in is 442 square feet so it's absolutely tiny and then he'll you know he'll come here Friday and then spend Friday nights Saturday nights and then sometimes Sunday as well and I like having him there, but it's just like it's too cramped like I just I I can't do it So like my solution is he just needs to find his own apartment so what's going on in your life you have a what we call a a traditional home in Atlanta a condominium a very small condominium did you say some 400 square feet

it's 442 square feet yeah oh okay

sorry it's a little bit bigger than I thought but it's a small it says you have a studio apartment and you have sent in some evidence which is a photo of this apartment This is also going to be posted on the Judge John Hodron page at maximumfund.org.

The apartment has mustard-colored walls, beautiful hardwood floors, and apparently you have zero furniture.

Is this part of your weird living arrangement?

No, that was that was before I moved in.

Oh, okay.

Just scoping it out, and I would have taken pictures with like the furniture in there, but my apartment's really

dirty right now.

So it would have been a beautiful twist

if

of the two children of the Coke mercenary, one of them lived in a car and one of them slept on a bare floor.

That would have been a very interesting fable.

But no, it's just a regular old apartment.

And Jan comes and spends most weekends with you?

Most weekends, like two to maybe three weekends out of every month.

Well,

he goes to math conferences.

So, you know, he'll be away for a weekend or

um

or he'll you know hang out with friends over the weekend so i don't want you to

don't apologize for your brother stop protecting him how many weekends a month does he spend with you

three

three weekends out of four all right

jan

how does this dead beating fit into your life decision

hey i i'm always it's always a thing of if he wants me to leave he can tell me to you know leave and I always leave and um but late like the last two weekends I wasn't there maybe one weekend out of the last two and before that I wasn't because lately I've been going on a lot of conferences as well so

and when you go to the conferences do you drive your car to the conference and then sleep in the car

actually no that's my one respite I tell myself if I'm going to a conference, I'm being productive, I can get a hotel.

Do you feel that you're not being productive going going to college?

I am, but it's mundane.

I mean,

I've been going to college the last three years.

Getting a graduate degree in mathematics is too normal.

You have to weird it up a little bit.

Yeah, I think so.

But if you go to a math conference, you're pushing the ball forward, so you allow yourself an actual bed and yeah, I need to be well-rested so I can

shake the hands of all the important people I have to impress.

Yeah, will they get a job?

Will they shake your hand?

Because I'm guessing you smell.

Where do you shower?

And Reese?

No, I have a, there's a gym on campus that I use and there's like a private bathroom I can actually

they have the school's big enough to have their own private bathrooms

with a shower, a toilet.

I'm glad to hear that your program in math has a bathroom.

Glad you're going to one of those reputable schools.

Yeah, UC Santa Cruz, who just had holes in the ground.

Jan, I have some more questions, and

I just need basic answers.

You don't need to go into detail here.

I just am very curious about your lifestyle.

What time in the morning do you wake up?

When I'm in optimum, it's about 6 or 7 a.m.

All right.

And then you drive over to campus.

Yes.

And then you go into that private bathroom?

Yes.

Generally,

you take a shower at the gym.

You go to class.

At the end of the day, you go back to your haunted muffler shop.

What time do you go to bed?

12 a.m.

usually.

Yeah.

Around then.

And are you running the car that whole time, like listening to tunes?

Do you have any entertainment in there?

No, actually, I stay in the engineering building of my college because it it doesn't have any regulations on how late it's open, so you can be in there.

Because I need the Wi-Fi to do homework and such.

Right.

Okay, so you do all your work there.

So by the time you return back to Prius Suite Prius, you're ready to conk out.

Yep.

What do you mean to use the bathroom in the middle of the night?

I haven't run into that problem yet because I go to the bathroom right before I

go to my car.

Okay.

Do you have water?

Do you have refreshment?

Do you have food in there?

Generally, no.

I don't.

You don't have water?

No.

Okay, and what about the heat?

You are living in Atlanta and Rhea is concerned about your safety as it gets hotter in Atlanta.

Have you ever suffered a heat wave that has been uncomfortable in the car?

Not really.

I haven't hit that point yet.

I mean, it's been fluctuating lately, so no, I haven't had that trouble.

Jan, are you interested in romance?

Yes, but yeah, but not at the moment, obviously.

Is the car bed in your Tinder profile?

No Tinder for me.

Wait, are you seeing someone, Jan?

I am not, but I was

about two months ago.

Well, if I've done my math right, that was during the car period.

What effect did your car bed have on your romantic life?

It it killed it, basically.

Oh.

Yeah, it kind of ended the relationship.

Were you seeing a a a man or a woman?

A woman.

Yeah, and did you keep the car a secret from her?

No, no.

She knew uh from the beginning.

Like as soon as yeah, from the beginning.

Yeah.

And somehow you let her go?

Somehow you didn't do what it took to keep a woman who voluntarily went out on a date with a guy who admitted from the start he was living in his car?

Well, we had been dating for about six, seven months before.

So she dumped you because you moved into the car?

Pretty much.

Did she give you a letter of recommendation or anything?

No,

she did write me a letter about how

selfless I was and I had humility and all these things, but I don't know what the letter was for, really.

She wrote the letter.

It was a breakup letter?

Yeah, yeah.

She said that

all these lovey-dovey things, because it was my decision to end it.

Wait a minute.

What?

There was so much strain on the relationship that I just said there's no real

prerogative to keep it going.

You have to focus on what's important, living in your car.

Yeah, exactly.

Just so that I understand, you were in a relationship.

Tell me about the day you woke up and said, I'm tired of waking up in this bed.

I have another idea.

No, so the thing,

our parents moved to Japan and they needed to sell the house and I was living in the house and they were like well figure it out and I was like okay I figured it out and they were like all right

have you told your dad double oh coke uh that you're living in the car does he know yeah he knows

this dad is this dad is too cool for words yeah

he went through much worse in the bay of pigs

my my son is living in his car i don't have time for this i'm moving to japan on assignment

Yeah, that's how he, how he.

He gestured with his eyes.

He gestured with his eyes.

Is that the most emotion he's ever shown?

I need to go on assignment.

He gestured with his eyes.

What about your mom?

She's upset,

actually.

She doesn't want me living in my car.

Is that because it's dangerous?

It's illegal, it's ill-advised, or

another reason I haven't thought of yet.

I think you have to be a mother to know the reason.

I'm not sure.

No one else could understand.

Everyone besides mothers lives in their cars.

Mom!

It's all the what all the cool kids are doing, Mom.

Has anything happened since you've moved over to the creepy muffler shop?

Have you had any dangerous encounters?

Anybody trying to get into your car?

No,

nothing.

It's pre been pretty boring.

How long do you see this going on?

Is this a full-time

future?

For the foreseeable future?

What's your plan?

My father's actually in works thinking about after I get back from China

before fall semester getting me an apartment.

But my plan is to find tenants for that apartment and putting that money that I get from the tenants and putting it into my Roth IRA.

So

yeah, sure.

That's tax deferred.

Do you know what?

You're a mathematician and you're thinking that your dad will get you an apartment that you will rent out and put that money into your Roth IRA and you're 21 years old.

I kind of want to hire you as my financial advisor.

Yeah, I mean.

I can send you my card.

You said you were going to China?

Yes.

Did I miss something?

How did this come into this stew of crazy facts that I have heard so far?

Three years ago, I started learning Chinese in a class, classroom environment, and then I ended up being proficient at it.

And now I'm at a point where I can have conversational, like have a conversation in Chinese.

So my plan is to either get my PhD in China or just go there for a gap year or something.

But for now, I'm just going for a summer since I've never been

to see what it's like.

And will that be this summer that's coming right up?

Yes.

All right.

So, Rhea, here's the thing.

Jan, it's important to me that you find that letter that your girlfriend wrote to you and read portions of it on the air.

So, I'm going to release you to go find that.

And, Rhea, I'm going to talk to you for a little bit.

Okay.

What's going on with Jan, Rhea?

Has he always been this way?

Yeah.

Yeah, he's just always kind of, I don't know, he just does his own thing.

And, I don't know,

my family, we've just kind of realized that he can't really talk him out of things.

Like, he just has to do them.

He's like really stubborn and like driven.

So, um, was there something else that he's done that comes to mind where you were, like, you wish you could have talked him out of it, but he couldn't, you he was just stood his ground?

Um,

well,

uh, last summer, after my my parents had moved to Japan, uh, he wanted to grow uh weed in the shed in our backyard.

And yeah, and I couldn't really talk him out of it.

He had to, like, he like we had, there was like little weed plants growing in the shed in our backyard.

Now, this is this is a family-friendly podcast, so I'm just going to explain to

the children who are driving to work and listening that weed is a slang for marijuana, which is a recreational drug that is illegal in some states, legal in some states, and restricted use for medicinal purposes only.

I do not believe that Georgia

legally permits you to grow marijuana in one's backyard.

Do you have any opinions on that, Ree?

Anything you know that I don't?

Yeah, no, it's definitely illegal.

And the only thing that's legal in Georgia is, I think, the oils

for medicinal purposes, but like you're definitely not allowed to grow it.

Wow, I didn't even know that.

Okay, well, interesting.

Right.

Yeah, no, I can't imagine.

And did he go through with this scheme?

Yeah, yeah, no,

they didn't grow to be very big.

He ended up, I don't know why he.

My parents found out and I threw them away, so.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, that's why.

But so.

Sorry.

This is like 15 different 80s teen movies.

All mashed together.

Okay.

Ree, what are you worried about is going to happen with Jan?

Like,

like long term, or because he's living in his car?

Well, how about let's do micro and macro?

With regard to the car, what is your chief concern?

Is it worry for him?

Or are you tired of the inconvenience of him deadbeating around your condominium and eating your food?

It is, I think it's mostly like concern for him.

Because like that's when you're most at your most vulnerable, like when you when you're asleep.

Now he's sleeping in a in a a car and you can like somebody could just like break the windows and like i don't know steal his things or like rough him up so like i kind of worry about that and also just how hard it's gonna get in the summer like i just yeah yeah and long term

what's gonna happen to your brother

i'm just like i worry that he's gonna like burn out because he

He just kind of wants to do like everything at once and he's very, very driven.

What would you say is your your brother's best quality

i don't well i don't know if it's his best quality but i think the one that i'm admire the most is that he's so driven um because he's very ambitious and driven meanwhile i'm just ambitious and i'm not driven at all so i really respect that about him i'm trying to evaluate if your use of the term driven there is an attempt at a pun i'm a little nervous about it Oh, oh no, that was accidental.

I can't believe it.

You're ambitious, but not driven, yet, strangely, you're the one living like a fully functional adult.

Yeah.

What are you going to do with your life, Rhea?

You're young.

You're only a year older than Jan, right?

Yeah, a year and a half.

Are you dating anyone?

Is Jan coming over on the weekends hurting your life in any way or deranging your life in any way?

I mean, I'm not like I'm not seeing anybody, but that is like a factor.

it's never, it's more of a thing of like, I'll be going out to see somebody, and then he calls me and he wants to know if he can come over.

And I'm like, no, like, I can't.

I'm going to go and see this person.

And then I just, I feel bad because, you know, then he's just like stuck in his car because I'm like going out.

Right.

So, but.

One other question.

This, uh, this apartment that you live in, is it I'm not clear on this.

Is it a rental or do you own it?

Well,

my dad and a bunch of his friends own it,

and then I rent it from them.

I see.

It's an investment property

that your dad bought with a bunch of his mysterious friends.

His old friends from the Bay of Bigs.

Yeah.

Yes.

He's very highly trained in a certain set of very specific skills, right?

Yeah, and he does have a Roth IRA as well.

It's tax deferred.

Okay,

do you have any form of income, Rhea?

No, not yet.

You just got your bachelor's degree in what?

Economics.

Graduated in December.

Oh, congratulations.

Thank you.

What kind of job do you want to get?

Well.

The ambitious side of me is applying to grad schools right now,

because I want to work on climate change policy.

Um but if that doesn't work out then I'll probably just get some nine to five that pays a decent amount.

Nine to five in the field of economics?

Yeah.

Right.

Um let me help you with the climate change policy.

It's too late.

No, I know, I know.

Uh no, it's like I don't know.

It's just been stressing me out too much.

I'm like, why am I even applying to grad school?

Like it's it's uh yeah, we're already we're all already dead.

It's gonna be great.

We might as well give up our apartments and move into our cars.

I appreciate Jan's apocalyptic lifestyle a little bit better now.

Jan, did you find that letter?

I did not.

I don't have it.

Why?

It was a paper letter?

Yeah, it was a paper letter, yeah.

Not something you could look up on your phone?

No, it was scented and everything.

I need you to tell me as much of it as you remember.

She said something like, I had taught her so much and

that

she, because I was her first boyfriend or something, and then she's like, your humility and selflessness for living in your car in the present circumstances leaves something to be desired or something along those lines of basically stop living in your car and we can date again.

I think I've heard everything I need to in order to make my decision.

I am going to climb onto this bicycle and take a little nap and think it over.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

I have a question for the two of you together.

Either of you can answer this.

Is it actually legal to sleep in a car in Atlanta?

I don't know.

I haven't had trouble yet.

White privilege.

Yeah.

Fair enough.

Are you ever

afraid,

Jan?

Yes.

Actually, there's been numerous times where I've been kind of like

my heart's in my throat and I'm like, what's going on outside?

But I think I've gotten bolder as time's gone on.

Like I put my feet up instead of keeping it down so that people don't see me, me, but now it's feet up in the air while I'm reading my book.

You don't care who sees your feet.

No.

No matter how grotesque that athlete's foot is from only showering at the gym.

Ree, do you think your brother's going to be okay?

Yeah, he'll be fine.

He's a good kid.

Is your apartment going to be okay?

Yeah, no, he'll be fine.

Okay.

Well, we'll see what Judge John Hodgman has to say about all of this when we come back in just a second.

You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, me for 15 years, and

maybe you stopped listening for a while, maybe you never listened, and you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years, I know where this has ended up.

But no, no, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah, you don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on My Brother, My Brother, and Me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So, how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined!

No, no, no, it's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lum.

I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom.

This is a message for any secret Coca-Cola

assets who may be in the field,

especially in Japan.

Come back.

Come back to Atlanta as soon as possible.

Your son is not grown up enough to be left alone in a major city.

Secret Dad,

if you do not know this already, your son is sleeping in his car.

And if you buy him an apartment, like you bought Ree an apartment,

he's going to sublet it out and take that money and put it into his Roth IRA.

You need to come back, Dad.

You can't just leave your sons behind in a car.

Or maybe you can.

Maybe he's the greatest dad in the world.

I kind of love that you're going through this, both of you.

Jan taking on this bizarre life experience and experiment.

And Rhea, you're having to take care of your younger brother.

This is an almost acceptable transitional bit of weirdness post-college and into adulthood because you are both really young.

This is the thing that I have to keep reminding myself.

Jan, when you said, yeah, I had a girlfriend, but then I moved into my car and she broke up with me two months after I moved into my car.

I'm like, two months?

Really?

That?

Wow.

Then you pointed out that you were her first boyfriend.

Which at your age is not inconceivable.

You're living in that twilight period post late teens and into adulthood where you just don't know, you don't, there are a lot of things you don't know about human beings

and about being a grown-up.

The ridicule that is being heaved at you, Jan,

by Jesse and me

is that as grown-ups, it is a given.

You don't, if you sleep in your car, Something bad has happened and you need help.

And there are reasons for this, right?

It's not just because it's an unusual lifestyle that most people take up because they have no other means available to them and are thus facing a crisis in their life.

The reason that the car is the last resort of the most impoverished is that it is profoundly unsafe.

You know that you are exposed.

Set aside legality

because if you're parking on private property,

I think it is okay to do what you're doing.

But you're parking on private property without the owner's permission.

And you don't know.

Never mind people just walking by and harassing you or deciding to smash those windows and see what else is in that car besides that sleeping dude.

If creepy muffler shop owner one or two figures out that you've been doing this scheme, it could be bad for you.

You could get that's trespassing.

You could be arrested for it.

I don't know how much your charming Roth IRA anecdotes anecdotes are going to ease your way once you get arrested for trespassing.

Now,

to answer your question, Jesse,

I don't know the specific legalities,

but based on some message boards dedicated to living in one's cars and vans, the refuge that most people take

when they have to spend a few nights in their car is often to go to a Walmart.

Walmart allows RVs

to camp for periods of time in their parking lots.

Not everyone, but they're known for this.

People who do this

will advise each other to go check with the Walmart and get permission to sleep out in the parking lot.

That is an option that would be perhaps safer than what you have done.

But what it involves is going to another human being and saying, I want to sleep in this parking lot.

And when they say why, you say, I just feel like it.

You are choosing a liminal,

a marginal lifestyle that a lot of people would not choose, but are forced to out of extremely dire circumstances.

And it's hard to square with the fact that your guys' circumstances are not dire.

Your dad is

willing to bankroll

living situations.

Obviously, Rhea, you're paying rent and you're trying to stay within what we call civilization, right?

You're going to look for a job, you're paying your dad rent, you're trying to make good, and you're also trying to be a good brother by letting little Jan the hobo in from time to time.

But, Jan, you're really choosing a very liminal lifestyle that has a lot of dangers associated with it.

And it's my job to evaluate

whether this should be allowed to continue with regard to your own safety

or whether I'm going to need to drop a dime to every creeping muffler shop in the Atlanta area and tell them, watch out, dude, sleeping in your lots.

You know, Jan, I don't think you appreciate how fortunate you are to have a dad who's not only willing to help you out financially,

but also is like super agent cool enough to be like, hey, stop growing weed in my backyard.

You could have gotten into some serious stuff for that.

I don't care how proficient you are

in Chinese character writing.

This stuff has consequences.

The stuff that you're doing has potential consequences that you are rather present, at least, as being very blithely unaware to.

But I'm not your dad.

And so I have to evaluate evaluate whether or not

I or Rhee

have any standing to force you into a more normal lifestyle.

Re, your argument that the car is going to get too hot,

well, I know it gets very hot in Atlanta very quickly,

and we're releasing this in the late stages of spring.

But there is a termination point on this because Jan is going to go to China for the summer.

You know, when I make these calls, I often think to myself, first of all, what does my gut tell me?

Second,

is it possible for me to

find in favor of the person that I have been openly mocking for the entire time?

And there's part of me that would love to do that, to just total throw a curveball.

and tell Jan to live in his car until he feels like moving on to whatever the next

weird thing he's going to do, you know, build a secret yurt in the campus center or something.

Because you're super charming, you're super fun.

You have not only successfully affected eccentricity, I believe you are legitimately eccentric.

Your Roth IRA plan is truly speaks to a decision tree that I do not understand.

And I appreciate that.

But at the same time,

I do not want

to have done this podcast and found in your favor.

And two weeks from now or whatever else, read about you getting hurt or arrested because your living arrangement right now is not secure.

I think you need to go camping, get some of this out of your system.

I think you need to go to China.

I think you need to think about what you are going to accept from your dad.

And if you don't want to accept help from your dad, what you're going to do, which is

both accepting financial help from your parents and not accepting it, are very valid and honorable choices to make.

But it's like you're avoiding that choice because you're going to sleep in the car and you're going to rent out the apartment that he buys you or whatever else.

While you're in China, I want you to think about what am I going to accept from my dad to get going in life?

And if I'm going to accept nothing from him, what am I going to do in order to sleep inside

in a house or apartment with a door that can lock where I cannot be seen by anyone passing by?

I'm going to give you to the first of next month and then I'm evicting you out of your car, Jan.

I hate to buzz market this company, but get yourself tonight over to the Walmart

and say, I want to sleep in your parking lot.

Is that okay?

And hear what they have to say.

I don't want you to trespass tonight.

And then by the first, I want you out of your car.

I want you in your brother's apartment.

And then I want you to go to China and I want you to do some deep thinking out there.

Yeah.

And

also, while you're staying with your brother,

don't grow weed in the bathtub.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Jan, how are you feeling?

Pretty good.

No complaints.

I mean.

Did it never matter to you?

I mean...

No, I mean, it did.

I mean, I'm going to have to move in with my brother, which, I mean, it's not a problem, but it's going to...

You're going to pay rent, you understand.

Yeah.

You're going to help your brother, too.

Yeah.

You're going clean out the kitty litter?

Yeah, I'll clean out the kitty litter.

Thank you.

It's his cat.

What?

His cat?

How did we get this far into this without you complaining, Rhea, that your brother who lives in a car left his cat with you?

Well, he's kind of the family cat, but I adopted him, so.

I mean,

it was either he...

Yeah.

Don't be a doormat for Jan.

I guess.

I don't know.

The cat's really cute, though.

He weighs.

Yeah, he's a fat cat, and he's just really cute.

So

I'm not complaining.

Make sure he cleans out the litter.

Make sure he gives you some rent money.

Figure it out.

This is the cost.

This is what you get for trying to be nice to your brother.

You got to live with him.

Sorry, Jesse.

I jumped in on you.

You want to ask Rhea how he feels?

Rhea, how do you feel?

Not about the cat.

We get it.

It's a fat cat.

It's cute, et cetera.

I feel good.

I'm not psyched about him coming to

live with me, but I mean k

it'll it'll be it'll be fine.

It'll be fine.

'Cause he's leaving for China the 9th of May.

So he'll be there for like eight days.

So it's like it's fine.

And he's going to pay rent so you can just put that right in your Roth IRA.

Exactly.

This just occurred to me and I I feel I feel dumb now.

Re, do you think this was your brother's plan all along

to live in his car until you were forced to take him in?

No, I don't think he's got that kind of foresight.

You don't think he's got that kind of foresight?

He's got plans to put money in his Roth IRA.

He's 21 years old.

No, listen, listen.

That's like that's the finances side of him.

Like the devious

social part of his brain isn't that, isn't that developed.

It was like first grade, he announced that he wanted to be an accountant.

So like the finances thing is like already

been a thing.

But yeah, he's not that devious.

Well, I wish both of you the best.

Thank you for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

And for letting me decide your housing situation, both of you.

I'm going to make a $50 contribution, both of you, to your Roth IRAs.

Perfect.

Let producer Jennifer.

You know, with the miracle of compounding interest, that will eventually grow to be a sizable nest egg.

You'll thank me for it later, son.

You won't have to pay taxes until the end.

It's tax deferred.

Triple tax deferred.

Jennifer Marmer, make sure I get payment information for these guys.

And I'm going to.

I said I'd give them 50.

Now I'm going to give them 40.

If there are any more complaints, I can go to 30.

Okay?

All right.

Good luck down there in Atlanta.

Well, that's another case in the books, Judge Hodgman.

We've got some swift justice coming in just a minute.

But first, a thank you to Rick Gutierrez for naming this week's episode Vehicular Man Squatter.

You too can name a future episode by liking Judge John Hodgman on Facebook.

We put out our calls for submissions there.

And also, don't forget social meads.

You can follow us on Twitter.

Jesse is at Jesse Thorne.

I am at Hodgman.

Hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets.

Hashtag JJHo.

And check out the Maximum Fun Subreddit to discuss this episode.

I've been doing it more recently.

A lot of nice people there.

As I think Jesse has said before, it's the one nice place on Reddit.

This episode recorded partly at Paperboy Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, our thanks to the.

Paperboy, Paperboy, all about that paperboy.

And our producer is, of course, Jennifer Marmer, the great Jay Marms.

Here's a Swift Justice question.

J.R.

says, I'm irrationally irritated when people use the phrase tons of to describe volume that's not normally quantified by weight, like tons of free parking.

What's wrong with me?

I

don't know, but whatever's wrong with you is now wrong with me.

I never thought of that before, and now it's all I can think of.

Yeah,

you can be irrationally irritated about anything you want

as long as you do not pedantically correct the person person who is saying a simple thing.

Andy D wants to know: should a bagel with cream cheese be eaten open-faced or sandwiched?

First of all, thank you, Andy D, for not asking if it counts as a sandwich.

Because a hot dog is not a sandwich, but I can't think about what is and is not sandwiches anymore.

A bagel with cream cheese should be served open-faced and consumed open-faced when eaten in a home,

when eaten on the go, dealer's choice.

You ever go to the bagel dealer?

Jesse, greatest bagels in Brooklyn, bagel dealer.

The only problem is you have to buy 52 of them

and then they toss them at you.

Wow, this is getting really complicated, this premise.

Is the bagel dealer Ricky J?

Yeah, Ricky J can throw a bagel such that it sticks into a watermelon.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org slash JJ Ho or email them to Hodgman at maximumfund.org.

As you just heard, no cases too small.

We'll see you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Gavel, gavel, gavel.

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